Tips for a Bug-Free Houseplant Haven

I never saw a houseplant pest in my childhood home. New additions to the "jungle," as my husband called my mother's houseplants, were always placed in quarantine and examined daily for interlopers. I followed my mother's example and had no houseplant pests until I agreed to care for classroom plants over the summer break. Oh my! My eyes were opened to all sorts of insect pests.

The plant migration began from a classroom to my north-facing front porch in mid-June. Night temperatures were above 55°F, so the houseplants didn't object to the cooler evenings. However, it seemed like every bug in the neighborhood took up housekeeping in the nooks and crannies of those plants. It became my job to clean up the insect infestations before the reverse migration to the classroom in September. How can you manage mealybugs, aphids, fungus gnats, whiteflies, scale, spider mites, and more on your houseplants?

Quarantine all newcomers to your houseplant population until you are sure that they do not have any infestations. Assume that any plant that has been outdoors is infested and isolate it from other plants when you move it indoors.

The article "Preventing, Diagnosing, and Correcting Common Houseplant Problems" provides expert guidance. Plants stressed by insects might also suffer from diseases. Adult fungus gnats flying around the house are a significant annoyance to us. However, it is their soil-dwelling larvae that cause the damage to the plant's roots. Take special care with African violets (Saintpaulia ionantha), as over-zealous pest control can easily damage their soft, fuzzy leaves.